Canada Hides 20 Percent Tar Sands Annual Pollution Increase from UN

Canada Hides 20 Percent Tar Sands Annual Pollution Increase from UN

The Canadian federal government deliberately excluded data documenting a 20 percent increase in annual pollution from Alberta's tar sands industry in 2009. That detail was missing from a recent 567-page report on climate change that Canada was required to submit to the United Nations.

According to Postmedia News, Canada left the most recent numbers out of the report, a national inventory on Canada’s greenhouse gas pollution. The numbers are used to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions and prevent catastropic climate change. It is certainly not the first time that Canada has dragged its feet on its international climate obligations, but omission of vital information is a new low, even for them.

While Canada's report reveals a six percent drop in annual emissions for the entire economy from 2008 to 2009, it fails to account for the extent of pollution from tar sands production, which is greater than the greenhouse gas emissions of all the cars driven on Canadian roads.

Canada's attempts to greenwash Alberta's tar sands are increasingly brazen. Last week we reported that the Canadian government was complicit with industry in the creation of an “Oil Sands Team” to lobby abroad to aggressively undermine European environmental standards.

Emissions per barrel of oil produced by tar sands developers are increasing, despite claims to the contrary made by industry in an advertising campaign.

Overall, Environment Canada said that the tar sands industry accounts for about 6.5 percent of Canada’s annual greenhouse gas emissions in 2009, up from five percent in 2008. Pollution from the tar sands has skyrocketed 300 percent since 1990, cancelling out many pollution reduction efforts in other sectors of the Canadian economy.

Industry claims that its figures do not show any significant growth in emissions per barrel of oil produced, yet the full report noted an intensity increase of 14.5 per cent from 2008 to 2009.

In the report, emissions from a mining category, which includes tar sands extraction, saw a whopping 371 per cent increase in greenhouse gas pollution.

To make matters worse, Canada was the last country to file its report to the UNFCCC. It submitted its report even after earthquake-struck Japan, and was unable to explain in detail why its report was late.

Your argument is irrelevent. The problem is not whether CO2 pollutes, but the fact that increased CO2 in the atmosphere causes the earth to heat up. It allows more heat in than it allows to escape. And there are no plants way up in the sky, so the CO2 up there is not plant food.

It doesnt have to be pollution to be of concern. It just has to force temperatures up. The negative consequences flow from that.

“The OIL Sands are actually just a big natural oil spill that is being concientiously cleaned up.”

oh I get it; an underground oil spill that needs to be sucked out and burned. How ethical. Ezra, is that you?

“CO2 is merely harmless plant food so it really a win win”

For which plants? Not the ones near the equator. The geologic ripple effects of C02 are not harmless, thats pure nonsense only a dufus denier would believe. Win win means bi-winning. Charlie Sheen, is that you?

And this shows how simple-minded the thinking of your average denialist is.

The ability to trap heat doesn’t diminish exponentially with increasing concentration, the opacity to IR radiation passing through reduces exponentially. Therefore the level at which IR radiation escapes to space, never to return (the only method of removing energy from the earth that it receives from the sun) gets higher. And we all know that the higher it gets, the cooler, yes?

And the cooler it is, the less it will radiate, yes? That’s why red-hot pokers are red hot but whilst heating up to that point, they’re not glowing.

So, all you have is Beers Law which shows how IR transmits through a volume of CO2 in a box in a lab. But the earth’s atmosphere isn’t in a lab. So why do you insist that you can extrapolate what happens in a lab to what happens in the atmosphere, bigger than any lab?

Its all spin - but on a recent program, some official was saying that the tar sands are an environmentally friendly project because the sands are actually being cleared of oil and put back in a more pristine condition.

On the post above - it seems counterintuitive that emissions are increasing per unit of oil produced. I would expect it to be flat or decreasing because of improved methods - unless we are running out of tar sands - which we are not.

‘Sorry Lionel but.
the Fact that CO2s ability to trap heat diminishes exponentially as the concentration increases is well established science.’

Ah! Another denier cherry pick.

You think I don’t knew that?
If you had consulted the reference I cited then you would know that I do and you would also discover what happens to the CO2 absorption band as CO2 increases. A further kicker is what happens as earth surface and atmospheric temperatures rise, let alone when positive feedbacks add to the problem.
Answer me this. How does the absorption band change and with respect to what. Also is the change symmetrical about that band?
‘Now the Myth about CO2 staying in the atmosphere for 100 years or more…. That is pure myth.’

And you know that because?

You have read it on some climate change comic like We Use Wishful Thinking, Climate Despot or Climate McFraudit. Doh!

‘again… People .. dont accept anything you read here. Go look it up for yourselves and you will see the actual truth.’

Quite! I could not have offered better advice WRT your claptrap that avoids awkward facts.

Few stories have caused as much local head-scratching as Monday’s front-page screamer claiming the federal Tories intentionally left oilsands emissions out of a report to the United Nations.

This does not seem credible. Federal bureaucrats who spend time recording greenhouse gas emissions per kilo of cow -and I’m not kidding -are unlikely to neglect a target as big and ugly as the oilsands.

It turns out that oilsands GHGs are properly recorded in the mandatory report for 2009. There is no omission of emission.

What is really amusing here is all the BS and silly hand wringing over a perfectly normal extraction of a valued resource.
As though the whining will ever have any effect on the projects.

The fact is, we need the oil and we will get it.
The whackos will continue to distort the facts and try to make people believe there is some unusual stuff going on and the world will be amused and continue to use the oil.

A hundred years from now, nobody will notice where the mines were and the whole silly AGW movement will be just another dumb dooms day cult that never happened.

There are deformed fish, in Athabasca Lake. There has been oil, heavy metal, mercury and cancer causing agents found in, the mighty Athabasca River. The huge Athabasca watershed is poisoned. The caribou are dying. A First Nations village, have a high rate of cancer. Even the very rare cancer, caused by exposure to petroleum. Another flock of ducks perished, from landing in the filthy sludge. The BC rain forests are now being affected by the tar sands.

And, as Canada is a cesspool of corruption, nothing Harper does surprises me. To lie about the pollution damage of the tar sands, is exactly something Harper would do. It is far from the first dirty tactics Harper uses. He wants to be a big shot, in the N.A.U.
The American people said, Harper’s election win, was rigged. That one i can believe. Well over half of the Canadian citizens, did not want Harper as P.M. The U.S. people said, there is a petition out with Presscore, to prosecute Harper and Peter MacKay for, war crimes and crimes against humanity. I also found that petition.

Harper with a minority was bad enough. With his majority, many other county’s are finding him, stubborn and impossible to work with. Harper is not very popular anywhere, especially among Canadians. The U.S. people despise him. They even said, Harper should be tried for treason. The American citizens, are going to fight the N.A.U. to the last ditch.

Democracy is utterly dependent upon an electorate that is accurately informed. In promoting climate change denial (and often denying their responsibility for doing so) industry has done more than endanger the environment. It has undermined democracy.

There is a vast difference between putting forth a point of view, honestly held, and intentionally sowing the seeds of confusion. Free speech does not include the right to deceive. Deception is not a point of view. And the right to disagree does not include a right to intentionally subvert the public awareness.

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